


Wings

by MagicalComradeMolotovCatgirl



Series: Anarchy in Anime [1]
Category: Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, Rain (Webcomic)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, F/F, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalComradeMolotovCatgirl/pseuds/MagicalComradeMolotovCatgirl
Summary: “Are you ready to learn to fly?”There's a new system in the city: instead of Witches, Grief Seeds are dropped by Wights, humans turned into monsters by their own bigotry. Rain, who made a contract with Kyubey to obtain her ideal body, is determined to find the truth about the Magius, the creator of the new system...even if she had to fight her friends and fellow Magical Girls.
Relationships: Chanel Montoya/Rain Flaherty, Emily Caston/Maria Stonewell
Series: Anarchy in Anime [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861378
Kudos: 2





	1. Melanosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Night of the Soul

#  **Chapter 1: Melanosis**

_The Dark Night of the Soul_

She walked underneath the streetlights, through a doorway and into an empty room. There was a girl lying on the table, with mutilated genitals. She suppressed a gag reflex, hot edge of vomit burning her throat, as she checked the victim for signs of life: alive, but barely. Her wish wasn’t specifically about healing – she wasn’t sick or anything – but it was about transition, transformation, and transcendence, so she’s reasonably good at healing magic. After giving the victim some magical first aid and calling the paramedics on her cellphone, she ventured deeper into the compound.

“Dammit, Gavin’s gonna be devastated…” she whispered.

It was a women’s shelter, once, a safe space for cis women to hide from the violence of cis men. The thing is, a safe space is, by definition, not an inclusive space; safety is cut out by taking power from others. When it’s cis women taking power from cis men, like when black people taking power from white people, it’s a great triumph for equality; but when cis women beat down on trans people to create their “safe space”, it’s the same as when cis men beat down on cis women to protect their “masculinity”: the repeating of an exploitative, oppressive cycle of selfish violence.

“So the tranny faggot was trying to use the bathroom,” a woman said, to the laughter of all the women around her. “So I pulled off its pants, and of course it has a penis; so I cut it off and ate it!”

It’s true that this woman once saved and protected many other women, just like it’s true that JFK played a pivotal role in the racial equality of US; it doesn’t change the fact that she spread a hateful agenda that encourages the rape and murder of a marginalized people, just like JFK’s heroic effort doesn’t change how messed up his personal life is. Both things can be true at a time; a person can be a hero and a villain simultaneously. Those who believe that the good one does can somehow balance out the evil will soon find their path to paradise is strewn with corpses and their hands wet with blood.

“That girl had a name.” Coagula spoke, her voice startling the women, as if she was invisible up until now. Then again, “civilized” society had always viewed trans people like her as invisible and disposable, much like with sex workers, until they need someone to blame, then suddenly it’s all eyes on them. “Her name was Ana.”

“Who gives a fuck?” the woman turned to face Coagula, and instead of a head she had a translucent womb on her shoulders, with an infant crying putrid pus of black inside its waters. It didn’t look like a woman anymore – or human at all, for that matter – because it no longer was; it’s now:

WOMBMINE, the Wight of Transphobia. Whether people admit it or not, transphobia is simply a form of Fascism, an irrational need to oppress a people based on essentialist traits they cannot change, same as racism. What transphobes truly want is not a safe space for women, but a safe space for _men_ , where everyone in society is put into rigid, sex-based roles so that men can continue their violence and reduce women to nothing but walking baby factories for men. They’re not Feminists; they’re misogynists.

At once, all the women around her rose, and Coagula could see that each of them had the symbol of Venus on their cheeks. Coagula frowned; it seemed to work like a Witch’s Kiss, but it just...wasn’t.

“I had hoped to resolve this peacefully.” Coagula said evenly. As a trans girl, she is used to suppressing her anger past the limit of human endurance, lest “Feminists” like these would accuse her of possessing a male emotion and thus deserving to die along with anyone that scares white women. “I guess not.”

A gemstone the size and shape of a chicken egg appeared in Coagula’s hands, encased in a golden cage with intricate patterns on the metal: her Soul Gem. The velvet glow grew brighter and stronger in her palm until it enveloped her body, and her transformation sequence began:

Her clothes dissolved in the rain and then coagulated, transforming into a purple robe reminiscent of Medieval alchemists. She looked at her own reflection in a pool of water, but instead of herself she saw a girl with black wings, and when the two traded places the black wings became her shoulderguards. A drop of rain stretched and expanded in midair, solidifying and gaining color, until it became a two-headed spear in her hands, with each end adorned with a small pair of wings, black and white.

“Who...what are you!?” the baby inside Wombmine snarled as its minions shuffled toward Coagula, but the girl ignored them and dashed toward the monster, sending one tip of her spear deep into the creature shaped like a fetus. Before it died, the Wight cried in outrage: “This is male violence! You’re a man!” while its minions all fell down to the floor at once, the Wight’s Mark disappearing from their faces.

“If it means I’m doing the right thing,” Coagula said coldly as the beast died, its head shrinking into a small, black orb the size of a chestnut, encased in a delicate design traced out by silver: a Grief Seed. “Then I don’t care what I have to be.” she picked up the Grief Seed and stared at it ponderously. “That was definitely not a Witch...not by our definition, anyways.” she observed as a small white creature, a weird chimera between a cat and a ferret, appeared at her feet. “The fuck is going on here, Kyubey?”

“There’s a new system in town.” the creature - Kyubey – said, and Rain frowned when she noticed how he no longer had the two gold ring around his ears: another new development. “They call her Magius.”

Sighing, Rain recalled the time when she first met Kyubey, without a doubt the darkest day of her life...

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“Rain Flaherty,” Kyubey said to Rain the very first time they met, appearing out of nowhere inside the privacy of her bathroom. “Make a contract with me and become a Magical Girl!”

“Wha - ” Rain blinked, her eyes wet with tears, the razor in her hand suspended over her wrist, its blade kissing her skin gently. “...I don’t know who or what you are, but this isn’t funny!”

“I do not understand the concept of fun,” Kyubey said, unfazed. “My name is Kyubey, a Messenger of Magic. Make a contract with me and become a Magical Girl, and I can grant you one wish!”

“One wish, huh?” Rain hmphed as she finally let go of the razor...for the time being, in any event. “And you just so happen to show up when I’m contemplating suicide? What’s the catch, Kyubey?”

“You will have to protect humanity by fighting evil monsters known as Witches.” Kyubey said. “It is a very noble cause, truthfully; you will be doing a great service for the entire universe! ”

“The entire universe?” Rain laughed bitterly. “Oh, now you’re just exaggerating; everyone knows that a tranny like me is worthless except when ‘Feminists’ need someone to step on.”

Nevertheless, Rain considered it. She usually isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth – after all, most trans people like her were so abused by the “civilized” world that a day without microaggression would be the best day of their lives. But obviously Rain wasn’t in a very optimistic frame of mind; her hand gently brushed the right side of her face, where a strain of her hair used to hide her right eye. Without a doubt, people would mock her for contemplating suicide over her hair being forcefully cut, thinking her to be weak; some particularly heartless monsters may even celebrate the death of these teenagers with a special sale of her game, while the gamer dudebros that usually hate Feminists with a passion suddenly bending backward to justify the evil of this particular “Feminist”. The same hypocrites also laugh at veterans startled by loud sounds when it reminded them of their traumatic war time experiences: it’s not the act or the word itself that hurts, it was a lifetime of humiliation and oppression that was brought back by that one word or act. Then again, these same gamer dudebros also worship the military as an abstract ideal without ever seeing a day of combat or caring for veteran’s rights at all, so it’s plainly obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together they’re just worthless and selfish children.

“Oh, what the hell.” Rain sighed and turned to face Kyubey. “Sure, I’ll make a contract with you...if you can make me a cis girl. Now, where do I sign and do I have to do it in blood?”

“The contract is completed.” Kyubey said as his fluffy and hand-like tail reached into Rain’s chest and, after one agonizing moment, drew out a gemstone the color of velvet. “No blood required.”

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“Ky!” Rain called out to her neighbor when she saw them on her way home. “Just who I wanted to see!”

“Oh yeah?” Ky said with a lopsided grin and a shrug. “What’s the word, Rain?”

“I was just wondering,” Rain began, “If you’ve heard anything about this new system called Magius - ”

Suddenly, with one inhumanly fast and fluid motion, Ky grabbed Rain’s wrist and dragged her into an alley.

“Rain – Coagula.” Ky switched to using her Magical Girl name. “Don’t ask questions about Magius. Just...don’t.”

“Seriously? You’re going to get all professional on me?” Rain blinked, sighed, and changed her tone as well. “Quicksilver?”

“It’s for your own good.” Ky said urgently as they pinned Rain to a wall. “We have a good thing going here, Coagula; don’t rock the boat for the rest of us.”

“I just had to kill a woman earlier today.” Rain said with disdain in her voice as she pushed herself off the wall and against Ky’s body. “So forgive me if I have some question about this shiny new system of yours.”

“Wights are not any more human than Witches are.” Ky backed off with their hands up in a placating gesture. “And they still drop Grief Seeds. What’s the difference? It’s no big deal.”

Rain considered it. She didn’t know how much Ky knew, about the truth of Magical Girls, about how Witches _were_ Magical Girls, and thus were arguably human...at least at one point.

“If you insist on going down this road…” mistaking Rain’s hesitation as refusal, Ky took out their Soul Gem, and bright emerald TRON lines shoot out from the gemstone to initiate their transformation:

The world is made of light and mercury, liquid and fluid, shining and ever-changing. The TRON lines snaked around their body, spreading mercury wherever they went, until they made a futuristic cloak of silver and emerald around them. Ky spread their hands, held their palms into fists, then crunched their fists against each other, before they pulled their hands apart again; a blob of mercury expanded in their hands, trembling as if it was a living thing, and became a spinning ring of silver around Ky’s body.

“So it comes down to this, huh?” Rain sighed as she transformed as well. “I swear, there’s something about magic that just makes people want to use it when they don’t have to…”

“Cut the chitchat, Coagula!” Ky grinned wolfishly as the ring of mercury surrounded their right hand and then solidified into a silver gauntlet with which they struck Rain. “Drop your questions about Magius, or forever keep your peace!”

“I have been a Magical Girl longer than you, Quicksilver.” Rain said as she cut the wall behind her with one tip of her spear, and the bricks immediately dissolved into an impossible liquid, letting her through into the abandoned building beyond. “Do you really think you can overpower me?”

“Hey, you know what they say:” Ky, on the other hand, simply smashed the wall in with the gauntlet before they turned the mercury into a silvery whip and used it to snare Rain’s ankle. “Nothing is impossible for those who try!”

“Idioms,” Rain cut Ky’s whip with one quick sweep, then she danced around Ky while spinning her spear, seemingly missing Ky’s lower body with the downward tip of the spear. Repeatedly. “Are just shitposts by dead people.”

A circular section of the ceiling collapsed onto Ky, pinning their body down to the ground, its melting edge dissolved by Rain’s magic.

“Ow...” Ky groaned under the weight of the concrete as they transformed back; they would have been mortally wounded, if not for the fact that Magical Girls are stronger and tougher than any human has any right to be. “You really don’t pull punches, huh?”

“Come to my place when you have cooled off.” Rain told Ky as she transformed back as well. “Aunt Fara is making lasagna today. Well, actually Jessica is cooking, but Aunt Fara is the one inviting you.”


	2. Leucosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Meeting of the Opposites

#  **Chapter 2: Leucosis**

_The Meeting of the Opposites_

“Heya, Maria, Emily.” Rain nodded at the other couple as she and Chanel sat down on the chairs opposite them. “You wouldn’t mind if Chan-chan and I sit here, would you?”

“Well, actually, Emily and I was thinking of having some quality time over lunch.” Maria grinned and looped her arms around Emily’s waist, which elicited a fierce blush from the blond. “Nah, just kidding; _of course_ you can sit with us. We dykes gotta stick together in this hellhole, right?”

“Right.” Rain smiled and nodded again while she pondered about the curious couple that was Maria and Emily: Maria had always been fierce and a little bit of a hot-head, while Emily had always been shy and reserved for as long as Rain knew her. They are truly the archetypal example of a couple with conflicting yet complimenting personalities, like a warming bonfire in a chilling snowstorm.

“So has anyone read the new Kaminari yet?” Chanel asked excitedly when they were midway through the meal. “I can’t believe that - ”

Just then Chanel’s phone rang, the ringtone being an old song that went something like: _“On a wagon bound for market, there's a calf with a mournful eye…”_ ; when she saw the caller she immediately stood up from the table and went to speak in private. “Yes, Montoya speaking...the feds did _what_ now!?”

“What had Chanel been up to?” Maria asked tilting her head toward the direction Chanel had departed to. “Feels like she has a lot of clandestine phone calls these days.”

“Black Lives Matter.” Rain answered evenly. She had felt a bit left out when Chanel started it, but at this point she was used to it and frankly quite proud of her girlfriend. “She had been helping with organizing and making signs and such; even gave a speech at one of the rallies near the city.”

“It’s all over the new these days.” Emily said timidly. “Just when people are ready to forget about them and pretend like everything is fine, the cops had to go black-bagging them...it’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it is. Some people just can’t live and let live.” Rain nodded and then pointed a spork at the couple. “Hey, while we’re on serious topics, you mind if I ask you girls something important?”

“Shoot.” Maria nodded.

“What’s the deal with this Magius?”

“ _Keep your voice down, woman!_ ” Maria leaned forward and whispered urgently. “Seriously, Coagula!? you want to do this right here, right now? Over lunch, with Chanel coming back at any second?”

“You’re the one who made us swear to never involve Chanel in Magical Girl affairs.” Emily reminded Rain, gently but firmly. “Because you don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Have you forgotten?”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to give me a quick answer then.” Rain shrugged. “Unlike my neighbor.”

“You’re the one who beat up Kay?” Emily covered her mouth in horror. “Buried them under a pile of rubble?”

“Oh come on, now they’re just exaggerating!” Rain protested. “At least I didn’t kill my own parents, as much as I wish I could have done my Dad in.”

“How many times do I have to say it? It was an accident!” Maria spat, anger and guilt mixing in her expression. “I didn’t meant for it to happen! I asked Kyubey to _‘bring Biblical punishment down on this house’_ ; I thought we’ll get locusts or red water or some shit, not my parents being turned to pillars of salt!”

“ _Yeah, I’m sure that makes a whole lot of difference to Rudy.”_ Rain bit her tongue and swallowed that sentence as she looked toward Maria’s brother, figuring Maria would pick up on such an obvious hint. Rudy, who used to always have a joke for every occasion, was now depressed and despondent after the mysterious death of his parents. Usually Gavin would keep him company, but with Ana hospitalized Gavin was hardly in a place to comfort anyone else. At least it looked like Rudy wasn’t completely alone; a girl with dark skin was trying very hard to engage him. Coleen, if Rain recalled correctly.

“This is neither the time nor the place to get into it, Rain.” Emily cut in with a pleading voice before Maria had a chance to lose her temper. “Come to our lecture tomorrow; all will be revealed in time.”

Emily handed Rain a flier that looked suspiciously like it was issued by a religious cult. “Wings of Magius” was what them called themselves, and their symbol was that of a squared circle with a pair of stylized black wings underneath. That logo reminded Rain of _Black Wings, Kaminari_ ; is this Magius character also a fan of the manga or something?

“What did I miss?” Chanel came back and forced Rain to hurriedly hide the flier into her handbag.

“Oh, nothing.” Maria waved her hands and laughed awkwardly. “We were just talking about a friend of Emily’s, Debbie. Did you know her?”

“The one with the glasses?” Chanel asked and the other girls nodded. “Can’t say I do. Hasn’t she been absent for a long time now?”

“Yeah.” Emily sighed. “I wonder what happened to her...”

Debbie Gero. Now there was someone Rain tried not to think about for a long time now...

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“Thanks for giving me a lift, Aunt Fara.” Rain said as Fara stopped the car. “I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime you need, kid.” Fara smiled maternally. “Hey, Rain, aren’t you a little...different lately?”

“...What do you mean?” Rain’s hand froze on the handle. How could Aunt Fara possibly know?

“Oh, I dunno.” Fara laughed. “You used to spend hours obsessing over passing, and now you just seem like you’re that much more comfortable about yourself and the world. It’s a good thing, really.”

“Jeez, thanks for calling me neurotic in a roundabout way, _again_.” the breath Rain was holding came out as a laughter of relief as she opened the car door and stepped outside. “I love you, Aunt Fara.”

“Love you too, kid.” Fara blew a kiss in Rain’s direction. “Now move your ass before I’m ticketed.”

After watching Fara’s tail lights fade into the distance, Rain took out her Soul Gem and asked Kyubey:

“Do we really have to go so far out of the way?”

“Witches are attracted to the misery and hatred of human beings.” Kyubey explained. “Thus there is no place that attracts Witches more than shopping malls, with miserable employees working dead-end jobs for minimal wages and self-absorbed customers looking at the working people with contempt.”

“...Sometimes, I just can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.” Rain sighed as she headed into the mall. After walking around aimlessly for a while, the faint glow of her Soul Gem suddenly grew stronger.

“A Witch must be nearby!” Kyubey warned as Rain span around to see which direction caused the Soul Gem to glow the most. “This way, Rain Flaherty!”

They found the entrance to a Witch’s Barrier inside a game shop, with everyone inside having a small icon that looked like a television on their neck: the Witch’s Kiss, a sign that a person had been touched and controlled by a particular Witch, their life in imminent danger if the Witch isn’t defeated soon. As Rain opened the door and saw the interior of the shop, she suddenly remembered this place: it’s where a non-passing trans woman had an argument with a gamer, which caused a prominent trans Tuber to start sprouting transphobic bullshit about the trans woman “acting like a man” for being upset. Said Tuber went on national radio to complain about cancel culture, and the irony is just too rich for Rain.

“Well, here goes nothing…” Rain mused as she pushed through a larger version of the Witch’s Kiss on the wall and entered the Witch’s Barrier. She found herself inside some kind of Escheresque, three-dimensional maze, surrounded by creatures that looked like giant, disembodied mouths with equally oversized shoes between their toothless lips. They laughed mindlessly and without humor. They are:

WEEBERATION, Familiars to the Witch of Black Mirrors. Their duty is boot-licking. With no heart, no brain, and no eyes, they blindly believe that their liberation lies in sucking up to the powerful and beating down on the marginalized, willingly offering up their time and soul as tribute to their mistress. Truthfully, there is no Familiar more cowardly and worthless than them, and they will abandon any cause or loved ones as soon as something else caught their fancy. The Witch herself despises them.

“Gross!” Rain squeaked as the Weeberations started to spit spittle-covered shoes from between their lips at her, most of which missed her and bounced off the walls harmlessly, their attacks as impotent as everything else about them. “Well, at least they don’t seem too strong…”

After the obligatory transformation sequence, Rain started cutting down the Weeberations and dropping them like flies, her magic of turning solids into liquids and vice versa making it literally rain. After only a handful were defeated, the dozens of Weeberations left bawled like the overgrown infants that they were, and went crying to find their mistress: the Witch with a giant television for a head and a body that was nothing by a severed hand, the five gigantic fingers acting as her limbs. She was:

PERSONAUSEUM, the Witch of Black Mirrors. Her nature is exploitation. She sells everything from free speech to diversity, even when it seems detrimental to her own interest. It’s all a trick; when people buy counterculture off-the-shelf and emaciation on pay-per-view, the sellers dictate terms of resistance and turn selfish people who think they are fighting the establishment into bullies who punch down on minorities to satisfy their own fragile egos. The Witch’s greatest trick is convincing people she’s God.

“Holy - ” Rain blinked, momentarily but fatally paralyzed before her first Witch battle. However, before Personauseum could squash her like a bug with one pudgy finger, something that looked like a black baseball struck the Witch’s body, a disproportional amount of momentum sending the Witch sprawling on the ground. A new challenger appeared in Rain’s filed and began her transformation:

She looked into the mirror from under her glasses and saw her old self, a self that she hated because the world shamed her for it. She smashed her fist at the mirror, and her hand went into its reflective surface as if it’s just a pool of water; when she pulled her arm out there’s a sphere in her palm, pitch-black and expanding, until it engulfed her body and exploded into a sparkle of pink lights, turning her clothes into something that looked suspiciously like aggressively pink funeral attire, with a baseball bat in her hand.

“Hey, new girl!” the other Magical Girl called out o Rain. “You have a death wish or something?”

“...Do I know you?” Rain frowned as she searched her memories; the girl’s features and mannerism did ring a bell, but for the time of her life Rain just couldn’t - “...Wait. Debbie?” Rain blinked as she finally recognized the girl before her. “...Everyone was wondering about your secret. Guess now I know.”

“Magic is one hell of a weight-losing technique, isn’t it?” Debbie laughed humorlessly as she produced another black baseball, which hovered around the bat without falling. “Then again, if the world doesn’t keep mocking me and humiliating me when I’ve done nothing but exercising and dieting, then maybe I wouldn’t need it!” channeling all her frustration about fat-shaming, Debbie struck with such force that when the ball hits Personauseum, it dug out a large hole on the palm that was the Witch’s body.

“Believe it or not, I kinda understand what it’s like to be the target of unconscious microaggression for no fault of your own.” Rain said as she finally snapped out of her shock and went to cut off the Witch’s fingers-slash-limbs, immobilizing the enemy so Debbie’s next shot would be the last one they needed.

“Good for you.” Debbie said as the next ball hit Personauseum squarely on the television-godhead, shattering the black mirror of a face and causing the Witch, her Familiars, and the entire Barrier to start disintegrating. Debbie grabbed the Grief Seed and tossed it to Rain just before they transformed back.

“Call me Singularity while we’re on the job.” Debbie said, and added when she saw Rain’s puzzled look: “It’s my Magical Girl name. It’s a thing with American Magical Girls. Have you picked one yet?”

“Uhhh no, not yet.” Rain scratched her chin, embarrassed about being such a noob. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” Debbie nodded before she turned to leave. “Be careful out there, new girl. Next time no one will be there to bail you out.”

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“Sisters, brothers, and everyone in between and beyond!” Emily’s opening statement already had Rain raising eyebrows; after all, Kyubey told them only girls can become, well, Magical _Girls_. Rain is probably not the only trans girl among them – they have genderfluid people like Ky too – but most of them would probably reject being called “brothers”.

“For far too long, the world had taken from us whatever it wants, whenever it wants it, without us ever getting any say in the matter!” Emily’s passion – some might even say zealotry – was totally different from her usual shy and reserved demeanor; Rain wondered which one was the act and which was the real her. Does Emily herself even know anymore?

“They forced us into rigid roles based on arbitrary standards, raped our minds from when we were just infants, telling us what toys we can have, what shows we can watch, what jobs we can held and what people we can love, lest we be deemed degenerates and sent to the slaughterhouse.” Emily’s vitriol at this point resonates a lot, Rain had to admit.

“And when we signed the contract and became Magical Girls, what did we get out of the bargain? More of the same: being forced into roles that we never wanted, being exploited by a world that never wanted us, and then being discarded like trash or reviled as monsters when the world is done using us!” Emily smashed a fist down on the podium.

“...All I ever wanted was people to warm up to me.” Emily added, quietly and more somber, her usual self breaking through for a brief moment. “That was all I ever wanted; that was what I asked Kyubey. But instead of gaining my Mother’s love – something every child ought to have to begin with – I was turned into a fire that attracts all the wrong people, all the wrong kinds of attention; the only one I knew to be true is my girlfriend Maria, who loved me before and after I made the contract. I’m so sick of it!”

“But fear not, my friends, for there is a new system in town!” Emily spread her hands and smiled like she was the statue of Virgin Mary in a church or hospital. “No more worrying about darkened Soul Gems! No more hunting abominable Witches! From now on, we hunt Wights: racists, transphobes, and other people so possessed by their own hatred and bigotry they crossed the point of no return, people who gave up their humanity to access the power of the impurities we’ve been fighting!”

“Eh, one question, Em – Firefly?” a girl gingerly raised her hand. Rain recognized her: it was Holly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with fighting Wights or whatever they are, it’s all the same to me, but...what’s so wrong with the old system? Like, what’s wrong with fighting Witches?”

“Apart from the fact that Witches were once Magical Girls like us, you mean?” Emily calmly dropped the truth bomb and sent out waves and waves of commotion and shock over the gathered crowd. Rain was just now taking note of how large the gathered crowd was; there must be dozens of people here in the abandoned stadium. Probably not every Magical Girl in the city, but a significant portion of them.

“...What the hell, Firefly?” Rain raised her voice as she stepped toward the podium. “Ambushing all these people with bad news like that...you want to commit suicide by overwhelming number of Witches, or something?”

“So it’s true?” Holly’s eyes was wide with terror. “But...how? Why?”

“Ask Kyubey.” Rain said simply before she transformed and turned back to Emily. “I’ve heard enough, and frankly I’m not impressed; you want to sell me on your perfect system? Let us meet Magius!”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.” Emily took out her Soul Gem, a burning orange dot like a torch in the night or a match consumed in kindling flames, and began her own transformation sequence:

She saw a vision of a world on fire reflected in her eyes of China blue. She reached for the flames, but instead of burning her hands the fire dissipated into golden butterflies, millions of them; the butterflies covered her body and then knitted themselves into a robe of crimson and gold. A particularly large one perched above her head and became a golden hair pin that bounded her flowing blond hair, while the last ones gathered inside a lantern in her right hand, burning orange within a bottle of glass and metal.

“I’m sorry, Coagula.” slowly and deliberately, Emily shook the lantern in her hand like it was a bell, and presently the smell of sulfur saturated the air. “But I can’t let anyone ruin this for the rest of us.”

At that, a legion of golden butterflies left the lantern and flew toward Rain. Rain dodged out of the way so instead of catching her, the butterflies ran headfirst into the wall, causing the curtains to catch fire.

“Have you gone mad!?” Rain shouted as the gathered Magical Girls start to either ran for the exits or transforming to protect themselves from the fire. “You want to cook us all alive in here!?”

“Relax, Coagula.” Emily smiled and shook the lantern again, and the fire dissipated harmlessly into a swarm of golden butterflies once more...and they were still after Rain, following her around no matter where she went or how fast she ran. “You have not seen the full extent of my magic, now have you?”

“Yeah well,” the building was too old to have an automatic fire suppression system, but Rain made do by dissolving the ceiling and the plumbing inside it, causing water to dropped down and soak Emily. “Nor you mine.”

“...My magic is to make and unmake fire as I please.” Emily’s flat voice and expression showed that she was utterly unimpressed by Rain’s tactic. “Do you really think you can stop me with water?”

“Probably not.” Rain grinned as she swung her spear at the falling water and coagulated it into solid ice, binding Emily in place. “I just figure it’d be pretty hard to fight when you can’t even move.”

“Rain, you - ” Emily was red-faced with embarrassment and indignation when Rain walked up to her, but suddenly three thin swords shaped like crosses stabbed the floor between them, turning the ground into a loose bed of salt.

“That’s enough, Coagula.” Maria entered from stage left, brandishing three more swords in each hand. “Keep this up, and you’ll find out why they call me the Executioner.”

Once again, Maria’s icy expression and stiff demeanor in her Magical Girl form was the perfect antithesis to the fiery passion and animated spirits Emily had just displayed during the lecture.


	3. Xanthosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truth Shines Bright as the Sun

#  **Chapter 3: Xanthosis**

_Truth Shines Bright as the Sun_

It wasn’t the easiest fight she had ever picked, Rain had to admit.

Maria’s Soul Gem was navy blue, its glow expanding into an ocean around her when she transformed. Floating, drifting, Maria sank into a seabed made of salt, white and clean and perfect. When she clawed her way out of the ground with her swords, she was a Christian nun cladded in deep, dark blue, with a silver cross sitting at the center of her collar. She spread her hands and the swords, thin and cross-like, appeared all around her, dozens and hundreds of them surrounding her form before she seized them.

Maria’s attacks were fast and furious, swinging the swords at her like a pair of claws. When Rain had barely parried one set of the sword-claws – at the cost of her spear crumbling into salt – the next set struck, forcing Rain to keep remaking her spear just to shore up her defense. And when Rain tried to put distance between them and get some breathing room for herself, Maria simply threw the swords at her, forcing her to keep dodging and preventing her from ever gaining an advantageous position.

“Why are you all so cagey about this Magius character? While you’re so busy preaching about her, too?” Rain asked, partly as a distraction and partly as a genuine question, as she risked a stab toward Maria, forcing the Executioner to dive back and give ground, letting Rain have the offensive...for the moment, at least. “All I want is the truth! About the Wights, Magius, the system...everything!”

“The truth? And what is the truth, except a victim to facts and logic?” Maria avoided Rain’s flurry of stabs with a backflip, then using the wall as a foothold she jumped into the air and dropped a rain of metal down on Rain. “The fact that we have a Congress kills the truth that the President and everyone who tolerates his existence is a Fascist pig. The fact that slavery was abolished centuries ago killed the truth that people are still slaves to wages and black people can still be killed for absolutely no reason. The fact that transphobes don’t explicitly say they want to build gas chambers for trans people kills the truth that they’re currently killing trans kids in the name of Feminism. Do I have to go on, Coagula?”

“Sounds like you should be out there protesting with Chan-chan, then.” Rain replied as she frantically span her spear around above her head to dissolve the hail of swords before they could hit her, with very mixed success, her robes fraying at the edges. “What you said was very true. But ironically, they’re just that: facts, and nothing but facts. Facts alone don’t make truth. Facts combined with logic and feelings and context give you truth. And that’s what I want: the truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me - ”

“There is no God, Coagula. No savior.” Maria said coldly as she used the momentum from her fall to smash herself into Rain, pinning Rain to the ground. “No Heaven. No Hell. Just humans, killing each other for no damn reason like rats fighting for scraps, while real monsters like the Incubators circle like vultures, waiting. There’s nothing we can do in this darkness, this silence, except to shout as loud as we can, and light the biggest fucking fire the world had ever seen. We have no choice but to fight them all.”

“Then let me help you, please!” Rain pleaded. “Tell me who is Magius! Tell me what this is about!”

“And what would you do, if you knew? If you met her?” Maria bent down, her face inches away from Rain’s, her cold breath tickling Rain’s cheeks, smelling of breezes from the sea. “Fight her? Kill her? Go back to let us turn into Witches for trying to protect the bastards whom would rather see us dead?”

“I - ” Rain began.

“Don’t you remember what happened to Singularity?”

“- Wait, what?” Rain blinked in surprise. “...I thought your girls didn’t know what happened to her.”

“Enlighten us, then.” Maria pulled her head back, but her hands were still tight around Rain’s wrists.

“Tell us what happened to Debbie.”

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

It wasn’t the easiest fight she had ever picked, Rain had to admit.

“Damn, I’m out.” Rain grumbled as she tossed away her last empty Grief Seed and picked up the one just dropped from the Witch. “Hey, you mind if I hold onto this one? I’ll make up to you, I swear.”

Hearing no response, Rain turned around and saw Debbie struggling on the ground, her hands clutching at her Soul Gem as if it she ‘s having a heart attack, the once brightly pink jewel now all the way dark.

“Debbie!?” Rain screamed as she ran over to her fellow Magical Girl and pressed their latest spoil of war to Debbie’s pitch-black Soul Gem. “Dammit, that’s not nearly enough. I’ll call Emily or Maria…”

But it was too late; with a heart-wrenching cry of agony, Debbie’s Soul Gem shattered and turned into a Grief Seed, and from her body emerged a single apple tree, but instead of bark the tree was covered by a layer of human skin, pink and raw and dripping with a blood red sap in the veins. She had became:

SHUB-CISHET, the Witch of Apple Tree. Her nature is prosperity. The manifestation of the essential woman to transphobic “Feminists”, she’s nothing but a machine that endlessly produce offspring so that they could be used up by a system that doesn’t care about humans lives as soon as they leave the womb. Her golden children are but leverages with which oppressors use to blackmail the masses into compliance, which is why the powers that be fears anyone who doesn’t submit to rigid sex-based roles.

“What the hell, Kyubey!?” more or less a veteran at this point, Rain instinctively retreated from the Witch, but she was still utterly shocked by what just happened. “Did Debbie just turn into a Witch!?”

“Yes, she did.” Kyubey said calmly. “In your language, a Witch is an adult woman who uses magic, correct? Then it stands to reason that a girl who would eventually become a Witch is a Magical Girl.”

Shub-Cishet shook its body and golden apples the size of basket balls fell all around Rain; as soon as the apples hit the ground, they began climbing toward Rain on chubby baby limbs, for these were:

FRUITUS, Familiars to the Witch of Apple Tree. Their duty is hostage. While they are powerless by themselves, their true power lies in their usefulness as emotional blackmail, even in their absence. No matter what your augment is, if you can say that whoever you dislike is bad for these golden children, you will be able to send anyone to their death – even real children - without anyone batting an eyelash. While everyone is thinking about these hypothetical children, the lives of real children are irrelevant.

“Kyubey, you sick bastard!” Rain growled as she fought off the waves and wave of Fruitus and made her way toward the Witch who was Debbie. “Tell me how to turn her back, _right fucking now_!”

“No such method is known to exist, Rain Flaherty,” Kyubey said, ever polite. “Unless, hypothetically, a new and sufficiently talented Magical Girl uses her wish to do so when she signs the contract with me.”

“So to save someone from Hell, someone else has to go to Hell!?” Rain shouted as she charged toward the Witch of Apple Tree, nausea and disgust slowing her down enough for Shub-Cishet to strike her solidly on the belly with one meaty branch, making her literally sick to the stomach before she finally drove her spear into the Witch that was Debbie, killing the abomination as well as the Magical Girl who had been Rain’s comrade. “So all the Witches we’ve been killing...they were all...just like us…”

“You’re going to pay for this, Kyubey!” Rain snarled and then stabbed Kyubey on the head, her magic dissolving his body and turning him into a puddle of white pulp. “You’re not getting away with this!”

“I very much look forward to seeing what you come up with, Rain Flaherty.” almost instantly, a second Kyubey appeared and started to slurp the puddle that was the first Kyubey enthusiatically, as if this act of cannibalism is a completely normal action for his species. “Magical Girls can do anything, after all.”

Unable to contain her disgust with the situation any longer, Rain threw up while Kyubey ate himself.

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“So you knew the truth. Or facts, at the very least.” Maria’s grip on Rain’s wrists loosened fractionally, but she didn’t let her guard down. “Did it set you free? Or did it just plunge you deeper into the abyss?”

“Goddammit, Maria!” Rain struggled against Maria’s hold. “I’m not some gamer dudebro who played a video game about seeking truth and being your true self and then decided to go find truth up his asshole and beat down on people for being who they are so he can continue to feel like he’s a rebel instead of a slave and eat his own shit while pretending it’s ambrosia!” Rain flexed her wrist and created another spear in her hand. “I already told you, I just want to know what this is all about! How are we supposed to know what’s worth fighting for, when we don’t even know if it’s something worth dying for?”

With a tap of her spear Rain dissolved the concrete floor beneath them, then she took advantage of the momentary confusion that followed to escape Maria’s hold and aimed her spear at the Executioner.

“Dammit, Coagula!” Maria snarled as she drew more swords from her endless supply somewhere in her outfit. “Why do you have to ask questions no one wants answered? Why can’t you just be _happy_?”

“Because happiness is a prison, Maria.” Rain spat. “Happiness is the most insidious prison of them all.”

“The Hell does that even mean?”

“When I first started dating Chan-chan, right around the time I got this body, I felt happy for the first time in my life.” Rain said without lowering her weapon. “So when she got into the Black Lives Matter stuffs, I didn’t know what to think of it; we were so happy together, why go sticking her nose into other people’s problems? But then those cis women tried to attack a trans woman at one of the BLM protests, and I realized it’s not someone else’s problem at all; I was simply blinded by my own happiness, blind to the suffering people all around us. My happiness, our happiness, was a prison to all those people we didn’t help. That’s when I swore I’ll never again run away from the truth, no matter how hard it is.”

As Maria readied more swords and Rain brought her spear to bear, the tension between the two of them was palpable; Emily struggled to free herself from her icy prison, to either stop or join the fight -

“It’s alright, Maria, Emily.” suddenly a voice said, younger and yet wiser than all the voices before her. “We all knew this day would come eventually; we can only keep the truth from her for so long.”

At once, all the senior members of the Wings of Magius dropped their weapons and bowed their heads. Emily tried her best to do so, but her movement was still restricted by the block of ice she’s trapped in.

“Magius.” was what they called the young girl whose faces was hidden under the shadow of her hood.

“So you’re the fabled Magius.” Rain frowned as she turned her spear toward the girl behind the curtain. “You’ve been a hard person to find.”

“Not at all;” Magius said as she took the hood off to give Rain a good look at her face. “Sometimes, what we seek is right there in front of us.”

“What - ” Rain blinked, flabbergasted. “How - ”

“Hello, Coagula.” Chanel smiled apologetically. “I’m Magius.”


	4. Iosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of the Great Work

#  **Chapter 4: Iosis**

_Beginning_ _of the Great Work_

“Hang in there, Rain!” Emily held Rain’s cooling body in her arms after she had used up her last Grief Seed for her friend and comrade. “Is Ky back yet?” she asked urgently, tears flowing down her face.

“I found Debbie, but...she’s dead, so not much help there.” Ky scratched their head when they returned with someone else in tow. Someone new. “I found someone else who might be able to help, though.”

“What the Hell, Ky!?” Maria growled and grabbed Ky’s collar when she saw Chanel running toward Rain’s stiff form. “We agreed to keep her out of this! We fucking promised Rain! Did you forget?”

“Of course I remember!” Ky slapped Maria’s hands away and glared. “But we don’t have time for it!” then they pushed Maria out of the way. “Rain’s soul is literally at stake here! We gotta try everything!”

“What...what’s happening...?” tears streaked down Chanel’s cheeks as her hands hovered above Rain, unsure what she should do, not knowing what was happening to her love. “Why is Rain...like this…?”

“Tell her, Incubator. _Tell her!_ ” Emily spat. “You said you never lie. Tell her the whole truth, then.”

“Rain became a Magical Girl who fights Witches in exchange for fulfilling her wish for an ideal body.” Kyubey explained like a techbro mansplaining code, smug in his self-importance. “A Magical Girl is the larvae form of a Witch; as a Magical Girl uses magic, the curses in her soul accumulate in her Soul Gem, until one day her Soul Gem become a Grief Seed and a new Witch is born, repeating the cycle.”

“What – what!?” Chanel blinked in disbelief. “But – but why!? Why would you do something so cruel!?”

“When a Magical Girl becomes a Witch and her Soul Gem becomes Grief Seed, the inversion between her wish and curse produces a tremendous amount of energy.” Kyubey answered, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “This energy is utilized to mitigate entropy and delay the heat death of the universe, thus ensuring a sustainable future for all species in the cosmos. Humanity would not want a dried up universe when you finally make your way into the stars, now would you? We are doing you a favor!”

“That...that’s it…?” Chanel gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. “You’re using her...using all of them...as batteries for some hypothetical future?”

“Why is that a surprise?” Kyubey cocked his head to one side, genuinely uncomprehending. “Humans do it all the time. You call it Capitalism. You grind up certain people so the rest of the human species can live in relative comfort and prosperity. My species is just honest about our goals, unlike yours.”

“Cut the crap!” Chanel finally lost her temper and grabbed Kyubey by the neck. “Tell me how to save her! Tell me how I can save Rain!”

“It is very simple: make a contract with me and become a Magical Girl yourself!” Kyubey exclaimed brightly. “You have great potential, Chanel Montoya. The power of a Magical Girl is determined by her connection to other lives. When the irrational members of your species attack you for no reason other than your gender, sexuality, or skin color, they inadvertently tied their fates with yours; and when you decided to fight back against that, you tied your destiny with those you helped. You have the power.”

“...Feel it.” Channel whispered darkly.

“I beg your pardon?” Kyubey asked.

“...I said,” Chanel stared Kyubey in the eye and spat out each word with perfect clarity. “I wish you will feel it, all of you! All the racists and sexists, transphobes and homophobes, anyone and everyone who punches down on other people for no reason other their own bigotry and stupidity, each and every asshole who uses people up and then tosses them into the dump for their own laziness and selfishness, I wish you will feel what I feel, what we feel! I wish you will feel our anger, our agony, our sorrow, our despair, or fear...I wish you will feel everything we feel, and then you can tell us how right you are!”

“Chanel Montoya,” Kyubey paused, surprised for the first time. “Do you wish to become a goddess?”

“Goddess, demoness...I don’t care!” Chanel said. “I made my wish; make it come true, Incubator!”

“The contract is made.” Kyubey declared, reluctance plain in his voice, when his tail-hand reached into Chanel’s chest and drew out her Soul Gem, red like roses and bright as flame, and she transformed:

She was in free fall, from the Sun all the way to the ground, an Icarus losing her wings. All around her are birds of different feathers, big and small, predator or prey, united by one singular purpose: saving her. In their little beaks they held ribbons, colored scarlet like heart blood; they tied the ribbons around her body, which became a luxurious dress of crimson velvet and black laces. A pair of doves tied a big pink ribbon on her head, before they perched on her feet and became a pair of shoes with white wings.

Suddenly, everything stood still. Chanel opened her eyes, and the world was surrounded by a soft white glow, with the only thing she could see being a young girl with Asian features and pink hair, wearing a ridiculously elaborate white dress, the white wings on her back framing her like an angel or a goddess.

“Who are you?” Chanel asked. “Where is everyone?”

“The Law of Cycles,” the pink-haired girl said. Was that her name? Or something else entirely? “Will not reach you, if you were to make this wish; if you were to replace Witches with something different, then your timeline would be forever separated from all others; no one else will be able to save you.”

“No one else is going to save us, lady.” Chanel said. “We’ve always been alone, with nothing and no one but each other, if we’re lucky. Some of us don’t even have that much. The world only cares about us when they can use us to champion their cause, whether it’s to show how woke and progressive they are by putting us in glided cages, or make us the monsters under the bed to scare the weak-minded.”

“What about hope?” the lady in white asked. “What about love?”

“It wasn’t hope or love that tied us together; it was pain.” Chanel answered. “Loves can be fickle and hope can be as cruel as despair. In our shared suffering, we know our sisters and brothers, and everyone in between and beyond. We know no one else will save us, except for ourselves; no one else will reach out their hands to us if we don’t hold our hands toward each other. We don’t need you or anyone else to save us, whoever you might be; we’ll save each other. I’ll save Rain. I’ll save all of them. You’ll see.”

“You remind me of someone I once knew...sometimes it still felt like just yesterday.” the Law of Cycles smiled, sadly but tenderly. “My very best friend, Homura-chan...here, the same gift I had given her.”

When Chanel finally came back to it, she was holding a red ribbon in her right hand.

“I’m sorry, Chanel.” Kyubey was saying, his tone and demeanor truly apologetic, a total departure from the smug rationality and impersonal confidence from before she made the wish. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“Did it work?” Chanel asked. “Did we save Rain?”

“Uh, not that I think Rain isn’t important or anything, but…” Ky pointed vaguely at the direction of, well, _everywhere_ : “We kinda sorta vaguely very much have more pressing problems right now!”

“What the - ” Maria drew in a deep breath. “Is that – that looks like every goddamn Witch in the city!”

Somewhere along the line, the girls were surrounded by dozens of Witches, their Barriers clashing and their Familiars fighting with one another, and it’s only a matter of time before they notice the group.

“It’s the blow back from Chanel’s wish.” Kyubey told them. “When Chanel made her wish, she created a new system in the city, one without Witches, where Magical Girls can live and die as themselves. but all that curses and impurities, all the Witches that are already here, had to go somewhere…like here.”

“It’s okay, everyone.” Chanel told them, calmly and confidently, as she opened her palm and the ribbon in her hand twisted and solidified into the shape of a bow, red like roses. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Chanel pointed the bow made of ribbon at the Heavens, drew back a string that didn’t exist, then fired an arrow made of light into the air; shimmering lines traced out a symbol of a squared circle in the sky, and from that circle thousands of arrows fell, raining instant death down on all the Witches gathered.

“We’ve learned to fly.” Chanel smiled as the arrows turned to bright white feathers and fell harmlessly.

“Holy shit.” Maria blinked, awed and terrified the same time.

“…That’s the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.” Ky grinned.

“Rain’s fine now.” Emily’s smile broke through her tears as she showed everyone Rain’s Soul Gem, now perfectly bright and clean just like everyone else’s. “Everything is going to be just fine now.”

“We’ve learned to fly.”

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“But...but why?” Rain asked after hearing Chanel explain what had happened. “Why keep it from me?”

“We were...ashamed. Embarrassed.” Maria said scratching her head. “We promised you to keep Chanel out of this, after all.”

“We don’t know how you would take it.” Emily added, finally freed from the ice. “We’re worried that you might react poorly.”

“I see.” Rain nodded sagely. “...Is that why you’re using Ky to stand in for Chan-chan even now?”

“Wha - ” Chanel’s form wavered like a reflection in a pool before they changed back to Ky “ _How?_ ”

“My Chan-chan couldn’t possible be this tall.” Rain shrugged. “Also, considering your magic, I figure it couldn’t hurt to just randomly throw that question out at Magical Girls I meet every now and then.”

“I told you we should have taken her measurements!” Maria said. “But no, you just gotta slack off!”

“She’s bullshitting!” Ky protested. “No one could possible tell the difference! Not even her girlfriend!”

“I really am sorry, Rain.” the _real_ Chanel said as she entered from the other side of the stage. “My Wings can get a little...overprotective.”

“Your Wings, huh?” Rain smiled as she went and gave Chanel a kiss on the lips. “Can I be one of your Wings too, Chan-chan?”

“My Wings are your Wings too, Rain.” Chanel chuckled and shook her head. “I named it after Kaminari, after all. We’re all in this together now.”

“Sisters, brothers, and everyone in between and beyond!” Emily resumed her preaching as the Magical Girls started to return to the stadium now that the dust had settled. “Some of us died in the dark, never knowing why such an awful fate befell them; others suffered from the burden of knowledge, eternally cursing the day they were lured into making a deal with the Devil. But the truth is, while our suffering is particularly fantastical, it is not, in fact, unique; the world is filled with exploiters and oppressors, as bad as the Incubators or worse, monsters in human skins that prey on the poor and the down-trodden.

“But no more! Thanks to the magic of Magius, we are given a second chance, at least within the confines of this city. Instead of burning our lives and wishes fighting to protect the human monsters that want us dead for no reason other than our gender, sexuality, race, or religion, we can now reveal them for what they truly are: soulless shells called Wights, mindless automaton driven by nothing but their own hatred and evil within their Grief Seed! Instead of hunting tormented souls that were once Magical Girls just like us, we can now hunt the _real_ monsters, and we’ll never become one of them!

“This is our rebellion, our revolution, our uprising! The beginning of the liberation for Magical Girls all around the world!” Emily spread her hands and nodded toward the direction of Chanel and Rain, who were holding hands and smiling sweetly at each other. “Now, let’s hear it for our Philosopher Queens!”

Hand in hand, the lovebirds walked to the podium, basking in the thunderous clapping from the crowd.

“ _Calves are easily bound and slaughtered,_ _n_ _ever knowing the reason why.”_ the crowd fell silent when Chanel suddenly began to sing, her voice clear and bell-like. _“But whoever treasures freedom, like the swallow has learned to fly.”_ Rain looked at her girlfriend, swooned and falling in love all over again.

“We’re the Wings of Magius.” Chanel delivered a simple conclusion. “Are you ready to learn to fly?”

“Yes.” someone in the crowd said, loud enough for everyone to hear and turned to look; it was Ana.

“Ana?” Rain blinked. “I thought you were still at the hospital? After what happened with...you know...”

“I was.” Ana smiled weakly. “But I was invited here by someone, asking me if I want to make a wish.”

An Incubator approached Ana, the one without gold rings around his ears; alarmed, Rain moved to stop him with her spear, but Chanel tugged at Rain’s hand and shook her head, smiling. “He’s with us now.”

“Do you understand the terms of your contract, Ana?” the rogue Incubator asked, concern and warning clear in his low voice. “There’s no rush; this is a hard life no matter how you slice it. Take your time.”

“I’ve already made up my mind.” Ana said, softly but firmly. “Please teach me how to fly, Satanael.”

“Very well then.” Satanael nodded as his hand-tail went into Ana’s chest and drew out her Soul Gem, which shined brightly with the same yellow color as ripe lime and midday Sun. “The contract is made.”

The calendar said January, before it quickly flipped through the days, weeks, months, and years, loose pages flying in the air all around her, flapping and dancing like surreal birds made of paper. Where the pages touched her body, they turned into clear white fabric, weaving out a hooded cloak of pure white, a collage of time lost and time found again. The rest of the pages gathered in her hands and became a notebook, blank and pregnant with possibility, the book of a destiny yet to be written and fulfilled.

“I’m... _we’re_ not going to be victims anymore.” Ana said as she raised a fist high into the air, and all the Magical Girls in the stadium soon followed suite. “From this moment on, we’re going to fight back!”

/ 人◕‿‿◕人＼

“ _Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death_ _,_ _”_ Father Morrison murmured while he struck the Muslim girl with a whip, again, again, and again, until her skin burst and her flesh bled. _“I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”_ his head was nothing but a burning bush, dripping ashes and cinder everywhere he went. He’s no longer human, he had became:

FATHER QUESTION, the Wight of Religious Intolerance. While Christofascists and New Atheists are obvious manifestation of religious intolerance, endlessly using a handful of New Atheists as an effigy to beat down on Atheists all over the world is simply a more insidious and common form of religious intolerance; the fact that online “leftists” continue to practice it when many East Asians are raised as Atheists or Agnostics and Muslim Fundamentalists still prosecute anyone who isn’t a Muslim shows that these “leftists” care more about moral authority and political aesthetics than human suffering.

“Fear is a normal human reaction, especially in combat.” a Magical Girl with long black hair said when she shot Father Question full of holes. “Lacking it is what killed Tomoe Mami in most timelines.”

After Father Question fell to the floor, the fire that was his head went out, leaving nothing but a Grief Seed sitting between the ember. The girl walked up to his corpse and took her prize from the corpse.

“A human that drops Grief Seed…but is that thing really still human anymore...?” the girl muttered to herself. “Kyubey is right, there is something extremely anomalous in this city, in this timeline.”

“Of course I am right, Akemi Homura.” Kyubey said as he appeared at her feet. “I would never lie.”

“...You will never volunteer the whole truth, either.” Homura said coldly as she stored the Grief Seed inside her shield. Still, it did look like this expedition to the United States wouldn’t be in vain. Every now and then, after hundreds and thousands of repetition, she would go and do something completely out of the left field, just to see if outside-of-the-box thinking would help her. The last time she tried this, she ended up making Tomoe Mami an idol singer...she tried hard not to think about that timeline.

“Howdy, stranger.” a voice called out to her and Homura instinctively raised her handgun in alarm; she turned around and saw a boy with dark skin and wearing a girl’s school uniform. “Whoa, put that thing away, girl!” the boy threw up his hands as his Soul Gem appeared before him, and he transformed too:

He was the center of a great old clock, its hand spinning around his body. With each tick a part of his clothes was replaced, the skirt became a pair of long pants, the blouse a tuxedo, the hair pin a top hat. After a monocle on his right eye complemented his gentlemanly look, many clocks appeared around him, one prominently had the name “Coleen” scribbled on its face. He clapped his hands together and all the clocks stopped and shattered on his command, offering up their hands as his weapons of choice.

“My name’s Ryan, but you can call me Dagger; and this beauty here is my partner Cloak.” Ryan smiled at Homura as Ana appeared beside him. “We’re the welcoming committee for the city, so to speak.”

“A magical...boy?” Homura blinked. She had seem many anomalies in the Magical Girl system during her travels, some of them actually subverted the Incubators to the point that the Magical Girls within its range achieved true liberation, but a Magical Boy...now _that’s_ a first. “What’s going on here, Kyubey?”

“This city of rebels is under my protection, Incubator.” Satanael told Kyubey before he began to eat his former colleague with ferocious bites. “You and your kind are not welcomed here, not ever again.”

“We’re the Wings of Magius.” Ana told Homura before she asked: “Are you ready to learn to fly?”


End file.
